Melbourne's Green Ambition: The City Leading Australia's Energy Transition

Melbourne's sustainability ambitions, expressed through the City of Melbourne's Zero Net Emissions target, the Victorian government's renewable energy commitments, and the growing cohort of businesses that have made the net-zero pledge the foundation of their operational strategy, position the city as Australia's most serious participant in the decarbonisation transition that the climate imperative and the economics of renewable energy increasingly make inevitable. The combination of the policy ambition, the investment in the renewable energy infrastructure that the policy supports, and the business and community leadership that is driving the transition faster than regulatory minimum requirements demand, creates the Melbourne sustainability story that the international sustainability ranking organisations recognise.

The Victorian Renewable Energy Target, the state's legislated commitment to 50 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and 95 percent by 2035, drives the wind and solar investment in regional Victoria that is transforming the state's electricity system and the energy system employment of the regional communities where the wind farms and the solar parks are being built. The renewable energy investment that the target creates has established Victoria as one of the most significant renewable energy markets in the Asia-Pacific, attracting the international investment in the wind, solar, and the battery storage projects that the grid integration of variable renewable energy requires.

The City of Melbourne's 1200 Buildings program, the commercial building energy efficiency initiative that has supported over 1,200 commercial building owners in the Melbourne CBD and inner suburbs to retrofit their buildings with the energy efficiency measures that reduce energy consumption and costs, has delivered the largest urban commercial building energy retrofit program in Australia. The program's results, measured in the energy savings, the carbon emission reductions, and the productivity improvements that better-performing buildings provide their tenants, demonstrate the economic case for building energy efficiency investment that the program has made to the property sector.

The urban food system dimension of Melbourne's sustainability program, including the community gardens, the rooftop food production, and the food waste recovery programs that the council and the community organisations have developed, provides the local food resilience and the community engagement with sustainability that the abstract energy and climate programs do not. The edible streetscape programs and the community orchards that Melbourne's inner suburbs have developed create the food culture connection to sustainability that the community engagement programs need to sustain public support for the broader transition.

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